David Drake

The man behind the world's biggest online Michael Jackson fan club has said heartbroken followers of the star have committed suicide because of his death.

Gary Taylor, president and owner of MJJcommunity.com, said he understood the tragedies had mostly taken place outside of the UK but he believed one may have been British.

"I know there has been an increase, I now believe the figure is 12. I believe there may have been one Briton who has taken their life," he said.

"It is a serious situation that these people are going through but Michael Jackson would never want this. He would want them to live."

Michael Jackson’s former wife, Debbie Rowe, is most likely to receive custody of the two children she bore when she was married to the late pop star, legal experts said today.

Although Rowe initially waived parental rights to the children, she later changed her mind, and an appeals court ruled she was the legal mother of Prince Michael Jr. and Paris Michael Katherine.

“When a child has two legal parents and one of them dies, the other takes custody,” said USC law professor Scott Altman.

[...]

A legal fight over Jackson’s children “seems almost inevitable,” Altman said. “It is very hard to reach amicable agreements over child custody in circumstances like that.”

Michael Jackson's mother won temporary guardianship of her late son's three children Monday, and a person close to the proceedings said the Jackson matriarch is also attempting to take control of the King of Pop's estate.

Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff granted Katherine Jackson temporary guardianship of the children and scheduled a hearing for Aug. 3 on Jackson's petition to become permanent guardian of her son's children.

The petition also sought to name Jackson as administrator of the children's estates, but the judge did not grant that request.

Michael Jackson's father, Joe, says planning for the pop star's funeral is awaiting results of a second autopsy.

Joe Jackson told reporters outside the family's Los Angeles compound at midday Monday that the second autopsy is under way, but he expects results soon. The county coroner conducted an autopsy on Friday but has deferred a decision on the cause of death.

Joe Jackson denies reports that his son will be buried at his Neverland ranch. He says, "That's not true."

Michelle Obama - cracking under the pressure of being First Lady - is drinking way more than she should, friends fear.

Longtime pals have been keeping a close eye on her White House booze intake for months, sources told The ENQUIRER, and her husband President Barack Obama even stepped in when she recently consumed too much alcohol.

“When Barack saw Michelle drink more than she should at a recent dinner, he hit the roof. He told her, ‘This is NOT going to turn into a problem!’” a close source told The ENQUIRER.

Accompanied by bodyguards and secret service agents, Mrs Obama, Malia and Sasha ate at the Audley pub in Mayfair.

The Air Force has successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.

Lt. Raymond Geoffroy says the ICBM was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 3:01 a.m. Monday and carried three unarmed re-entry vehicles to their targets near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of white Connecticut firefighters in a 5-4 ruling that reverses an appeals court finding by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the Associated Press reports.

The high court found that the firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

Update at 10:38 a.m. ET: The court ruled that New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the AP says. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

A black market has developed for some of these and other products. One Twin Cities mother decided to speak out about what happened to her after she tried to save money by injecting herself with silicone.

"I really though that I was getting a bargain and I really didn't do my homework like I should have," said the woman who did not want to be identified.

Her lips and left cheek are disfigured from silicone she self-injected. She was trying to make her upper lip fuller and fill acne scars.

A year and a half ago, another doctor had given her silicone injections. That treatment went well but it wasn't cheap. It was $2700 for a series of three treatment.

So she turned to the Internet and found a site advertising silicone for $10.

The site clearly says the product is to be used externally as a personal lubricant. She thought because it was 100 percent silicone she could inject it. She bought the syringes at a local pharmacy.

"Initially I thought I did a good job," she said.

However, within a day her lips and cheek were disfigured.

"Its very frightening, its very embarrassing having to be in public," she said.

The doctor who is helping her, Dr. Edward Szachowicz, fears in this weak economy more and more patients may try to do their own injections. At his office the price of injectable fillers ranges from $250 to $800. The products last anywhere from four months to up to 18 months.

"I believe that what happened to our patient is a sign of the times," said Szachowicz.

Szachowicz said patients are turning to the Internet, especially overseas sites.

"They are actually getting product in their hands that wasn't previously available," he said.

Now this Twin Cities mother will be going to California to consult with a plastic surgeon. She faces thousands of dollars in medical bills.

"I feel that some of it can be fixed. I don't know how much," she said.

Now she wants to warn others.

"Don't do it," she said. "You don't know what you are getting especially if you're buying these products off the Internet."

"I didn't fall in love with any of them," Spitzer was overheard telling LMDC executive director Avi Schick[.]

...investigators conducting the autopsy were also surprised at how healthy Jackson was.

While he wasn't necessarily normal, he appeared to be stronger than they expected. Investigators were surprised to see significant scarring on his face, this being the first time they had seen Jackson without make-up.

Regulators on Friday shut down five small banks, boosting to 45 the number of failures this year of federally insured banks. More are expected to succumb in the prolonged recession.

[...]

The 45 banks closed nationwide this year compare with 25 in all of 2008 and three in 2007.

A Duke University official has been charged in federal court with offering his 5-year-old adopted son up for sex. Frank Lombard, associate director at the university's Global Health Institute, was arrested Wednesday in Raleigh, the FBI said.

[...]

[An] informant told investigators he had met Lombard on the Internet four years ago. The informant described in graphic detail how he allegedly observed Lombard molesting an African-American child on four occasions over an Internet video chat service called ICUii.

The informant said, according to court papers, that Lombard, who is white, said that he lived in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina and that the child was one of two adopted African-Americans in his custody.

Lombard has been charged with attempting to induce someone to cross state lines to engage in sex with a child, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Lombard allegedly used the adult Internet service to conduct his video chats. According to an affidavit in support of the arrest warrant, the Internet service indicated that Lombard's profile "stated he was interested in "perv fam fun," a reference to "incestuous child molestation." The service also told investigators that a customer service complaint had been sent to the company in January 2007. A customer who had chatted with Lombard complained to the company that Lombard said he was "into incest" and had adopted two African-American children, court records said. [Any Progressive want to make a case for gay adoption? - Drake]

A Washington, D.C., police detective who was investigating the case set up undercover chats with someone matching Lombard's description during which the detective says he was invited to fly to Raleigh to have sex with the person's 5- year-old adopted child. In his affidavit, Det. Timothy Palchak wrote that he engaged in a chat with someone using the screen name "FL" who provided nude pictures of himself. The pictures matched Lombard's North Carolina driver's license photo, according to the affidavit.

During the chats, according to the affidavit, whom he adopted as an infant, and that he had allowed others to molest his child. "FL" told undercover investigators that he had himself molested his child,"FL" stated that "the abuse of the child was easier when the child was too young to talk or know what was happening, but that he had drugged the child with Benadryl during the molestation," Palchak wrote in his affidavit.

[Lombard] told the investigator "he could not molest the adopted 5-year-old child when his partner was around, however the partner was leaving for a four-day business trip the next day, which would allow him the ability to molest the child just as he did the last time his partner had left town."

Michael Jackson was a child prodigy, a musical genius and remains an idolised artist despite a troubled life in later years.

Los Angeles County Coroner's office spokesman confirmed the pop star's death on Thursday.

Lieutenant Fred Corral told CNN that Jackson, 50, was pronounced dead at 2:26pm local time, (0726 AEST) after reportedly suffering a cardiac arrest.

Earlier, it was reported he was hospitalised on Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest.

The Los Angeles Times and entertainment website TMZ.com said the pop icon had died after paramedics could not revive him.

Farrah Fawcett, who epitomized the all-American ideal of beauty, has died after a three-year battle with cancer. She was 62. Her spokesman, Paul Bloch, says Fawcett died Thursday morning in a Santa Monica hospital.

In September 2006, Fawcett learned she had anal cancer. The devastating news led to a reconciliation with her on-and-off boyfriend, Ryan O'Neal, 68, the father of their troubled son, Redmond, 24. O'Neal was by her side as Fawcett went through chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and the actress was declared cancer-free in February 2007. But later that spring, she learned the cancer had returned. After growing weary of ineffective treatments in the USA, Fawcett traveled to Germany in September 2007 for alternative cancer therapies.

"Did she die peacefully?"

"Was she conscious enough to talk to people to hear what they had to say? Was she THAT conscious?"

"Who was at her bedside when she died?"

"When Ryan was talking to Farrah, what was he saying?"

"Redmond (son of Ryan and Fawcett) is in jail. Did he get to talk with her before she died?"

What just happened to American healthcare reform?

The political prospects for major U.S. healthcare reform have taken a decided turn for the worse in recent days (at least from the point of view of many Democrats). And you don't need to be some totally plugged-in Washington insider to understand that.

Just take a look-see at the stock market performance of industry players such as Aetna Inc , Cigna , UnitedHealth Group, and WellPoint . Shares have been trending higher of late. What's been slowly dawning on Wall Street is that the legislative process in Washington is unlikely to produce a national public health insurance option that could eventually squeeze out the private sector.

Fact is, the prospects for any sort of bill that would produce major changes are in as much doubt as at any time since President Obama took office. Worried that the plan was growing too expensive, the critical Senate Finance Committee appears to have jettisoned any idea of a public plan option and is also cutting back on subsidies to help fully insure the nearly 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance for one reason or another.

In the last two weeks we've seen President Obama endure treatment that he isn't exactly accustomed to: harsh criticism from his own party, a significant slip in the polls, and unfavorable headlines instead of glowing, inflated puff pieces. It seems that biting off more than he can chew when it comes to health care, government intervention into the private sector, and ballooning deficits have left him choking in what might be the first major sea change as his policy positions have started to eclipse his personal popularity.

[...]

The Obama administration has yet to tell us why the government can successfully run universal health care when we can't even run the socialized health programs we already have in place: Medicare (which is hemorrhaging money) and Medicaid (which is putting many states in the red). As new reports surface that Obama lacks the support in Congress to pass this behemoth bill, expect it -- and his popularity numbers -- to fall apart, and fast. Look for a White House that will begin to scale back expectations. Still, the lack of details and support will likely quickly trigger a collapse in confidence.

"Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don't do it in front of my family. And, you know, I would say that I am 95 percent cured."

THE FACTS: It's hard to say how "cured" someone is when they're still trying to kick the habit. Obama promised to quit his one-time five-smoke-a-day average during the campaign, at the urging of his wife. [Another "promise"...another LIE from The Kenyan. - Drake]

...77 Democratic lawmakers today urged President Obama to use his executive powers to order a halt to military discharges under the controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and work aggressively with Congress to pass new legislation to overturn what they describe as a discriminatory policy that harms national security.

"We urge you to exercise the maximum discretion legally possible in administering Don�t Ask, Don�t Tell until Congress repeals the law," states the letter, organized by Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Democrat of Florida.

[...]

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, asked about the policy last week, made it clear that he believes it is ultimately up to the Congress to reverse it and that the administration has few options unless it repeals the law.

"Until the law is changed, our ability to change the policy is extremely limited, if not nonexistent," Gates said.

...he made "Hi-Yo!" and "Heeeeere's Johnnnny" parts of the American lexicon.

McMahon was the straight man for Carson's famed Carnac the Magnificent skits, during which Carson would guess an answer before McMahon even read the question.

"We didn't rehearse," McMahon told Larry King in a 2005 interview after Carson died. "You know, we never - I never saw it 'til, you know, I only - I'd see on the rundown, "Carnac," that's all I would see."

Ed McMahon was an old-school salesman. He never denied it, never apologized for it and never had a reason to.

He put himself through school, he always said, by pitching vegetable slicers. Seventy years later he was hawking "cash4gold" and FreeCreditReport.com.

No Rolex watches here. Ed McMahon's people were ordinary folks.

Amateur video apparently showing a young Iranian woman dying in Tehran after she was allegedly shot by pro-government militia on Saturday has caused outrage in Iran and abroad.

The woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, was buried on Sunday.

[...]

Eyewitnesses and video footage of the shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her. Eyewitnesses said they clearly targeted her and she was shot in the chest.

She passed away within a few minutes. People tried to take her to the nearest hospital, the Shariati hospital. But it was too late.

Her name is Neda, which means "voice" in Farsi, and her death has become the central rallying cry of the Iranian rebellion.

The fresh-faced teenage girl killed by what appears to be a single sniper shot on the streets of Tehran Saturday is now a potent symbol for Iran's pro-democracy protesters.

Her shocking and quick death in the arms of her howling father was captured on closeup video, posted to Facebook and came to life on computer screens across the globe.